BOULDER -- Boulder County doesn't have the legal authority to permanently prohibit the drilling of new oil and gas wells in unincorporated parts of the county, or to ban the use of hydraulic fracturing technology in such drilling, Peter Fogg, manager of the county Land Use Department's long range policy team, emphasized on Wednesday.

"Regardless of what we'd like to do, we cannot do that," Fogg told members of the County Planning Commission and a group of about 20 fracking critics who attended the planning panel's Wednesday meeting.

The Planning Commission is considering updates to Boulder County Comprehensive Plan provisions, some of them more than 30 years old, relating to oil and gas exploration and production in areas of the county lying outside cities' and towns' boundaries. That work, expected to be followed later this summer or this coming fall by proposed revisions to the Land Use Code's regulations about oil and gas drilling operations, is being done while the county is in the midst of a temporary moratorium -- set to expire next Feb. 4 -- on processing applications for new oil and gas drilling.

Most of the nine people who spoke at the Planning Commission's Wednesday public hearing on a draft set of proposed comprehensive-plan amendments either objected to the adequacy of those amendments, or to the technology of "fracking," or both.

Lisa Foss-Kinzie, a Lafayette resident, said, "Fracking is a destroyer of land and water." She said if Boulder County allows hydraulic fracturing -- the process of injecting pressurized mixtures of chemicals, sand and water into rock formations to free up oil and gas deposits -- "the only winners will be Big Oil."

Jennifer Murnan, who lives west of Longmont, said fracking has been deemed so dangerous that at least two countries, one of them France, as well as the state of Vermont in this country, have banned it.

Nancy Hall, another unincorporated Boulder County resident, encouraged the planning commissioners and the county staff "to more actively engage the public" in the possible changes to the county comprehensive plan, because of that document's importance.

Planning commissioners reviewed and suggested some changes to the Land Use Department staff's draft amendments. The staff will bring that revised amendment language back to the commission for possible action on July 18, with the proposed amendments to be posted online at least a week prior to that meeting.

Commissioner Scott Holwick assured people at Wednesday's meeting that the July 18 meeting will include another public hearing, giving them, as well as their friends and neighbors, their next formal chance to comment on proposals for updating the comprehensive plan's oil and gas provisions.

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